Tijuana Ricks is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama where she was awarded both the Rebecca West Memorial Scholarship and the Herschel Williams Prize for Outstanding Ability in Acting. Ms. Ricks has performed in numerous film, television, and stage productions alongside some of the greats in the industry such as the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, Laura Linney, Viola Davis, Paul Giamatti, and Dustin Hoffman. She is also an accomplished voiceover artist with a 2013 Grammy nomination for spoken word for her work as Michelle Obama in the First Lady's audiobook, American Grown.
Ms. Ricks made her directorial debut in 2016 with a comedy pilot she also co-created and produced, The Vampire Leland - an official selection of the New York Television Festival, St. Louis International Film Festival, SoHo International Film Festival, and SeriesFest. IndieWire singled The Vampire Leland as one of "8 great pilots that deserve a network home" that has "professional gloss, plenty of fun plot threads to explore, and a wry tone that had us hooked."
As a producer, her short film Human Resources: Sick Days Aren’t A Game premiered at LA Comedy Fest and went on to be an official selection for SoHo International Film Festival, St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase, HollyShorts Film Festival, St. Louis International Film Festival, and the Atlanta Film Festival where she was named, "A Filmmaker to Watch."
In 2019, Tijuana was selected as one of 15 semi-finalists for the Shondaland! Women Directing Fellowship. She is currently in post-production for her latest project, Make America Bake Again, a dark comedy starring comediennes Molly Camp, Shannon O'Neill and Ashley Austin Morris. MABA is about a wacky mid-western woman trying to make it as a finalist for her favorite TV baking competition.
